Odds are you won’t hear Phil Steele make a joke about the lack of internet in a redneck state like Arkansas anytime soon. He found out the hard way that not only do the Razorback fans have the internet, they are willing to use it as a weapon of war.

After the BCS games were over and done, everyone started to turn their attention to the 2011-2012 football season. PhilSteele.com was no different. They immediately put up a fan poll to see which team the fans thought should start next season in the pole position.

Hogville.net, a Razorback website that happens to host the largest Razorback message board with some 25,000 registered users, got the memo. Hogville users flooded the poll with votes for the Razorbacks, easily carrying enough votes to take the number one spot in the poll with over 67% of the fan vote. Hogville users were stunned to find that Oklahoma was given the coveted number one spot over the Razorbacks.

Undeterred, the virtual Razorback soldiers went back to battle to get the Hogs into the number two slot. Once again, the Razorback message board owned the voting. The Razorbacks had nearly 90% of the vote, yet the Phil Steele site awarded the second place position to the Alabama Crimson Tide. But Hogville users are not accustomed to losing battles so easily, and they were prepared to play this game as long as they must.

Imagine their surprise when the Phil Steele site did not even list them as an option for the third place team in his preseason fan poll.

Hogville responded by stuffing the ballot box with a team they felt would cause the most havoc in the poll. One poster summed it up succinctly. “Okay, so now we stuff the box full of the least likely team right? [Steele] won’t get the last word with Hogville.”

And no, Phil Steele did not. Feeling that Nebraska was the worst team on the list of suitors for the number three position, Hogville users voted en masse to secure the victory for Nebraska. And so it was done.

The Hogs were back on the voting ballot when the poll was released for the fourth spot, and Arkansas easily carried the way. This time, the efforts of Hogville users would be recognized.

The Hogville message board is not known, however, for its forgiveness. There still was work left to be done. That work was to make the preseason poll look as illegitimate as possible, and that could be done by preventing the rivals Arkansas fans most love to hate from making the poll at all. In the eyes of Hogville, Phil Steele’s website had slapped the Razorback nation in the face. Payback was certain.

From that point forward, the users at Hogville.net decided which team landed where on Phil Steele’s preseason fan poll. When the call was made for everyone to vote Texas A&M, Hogville dictated their victory (#5). Some teams benefited from Hogville’s lust for payback (ex. #7 Michigan State) while some teams suffered the wrath of the Hogville’s ire (ex. #24 Boise State).

But it was the most hated of rivals that Hogville users made sure could not be found on the fan poll. The Hogs’ long time Southwest Conference rival Texas Longhorns did not grace the top 25. Neither did the Florida Gators. The two most noticeably absent teams are the current national champion Auburn Tigers and the Hog’s Battle for the Boot enemies, the LSU Tigers. The Hogville message board simply refused to give any of those teams their blessing which became necessary for a spot on Steele’s poll.

When contacted about the actions of the PhilSteele.com website in regards to Arkansas and the fan poll, assistant editor for Phil Steele Publications, Brandon Pertner, explained what had happened. By all rights, it seemed like an honest mistake.

The following is part of the response from Pertner:

“After #1 was voted on we then had a couple of thousand votes and most were for Arkansas, while not out of the realm of possibility (I think they have a great shot at finishing in at least the Top 15 this year) seemed a little odd. We have had people hack into our polls in the past and given thousands of votes to teams or players that really did not fit the question so we (myself and Phil) concluded that it was probably an Arkansas fan doing this. We then just gave the #2 and #3 positions to the schools that finished second to Arkansas to hopefully deter the hacker since we weren’t counting his/her votes anyway. It was then brought to our attention that it was not a singular fan hacking into our site but a Razorback-based message board that was voting. So we then decided to count those votes from there on out starting with Arkansas at #4.”

Obviously, the Phil Steele folks had plenty of reasons for concern. Few message boards, perhaps no message board around the country, can rally the troops for sports related voting like Hogville. When the Hogville message board puts its heart and soul into a vote, it usually carries the day. The anomalous number of votes in favor of the Razorbacks was enough to believe hundreds or thousands of votes were being hacked into the system.

That’s a better voting machine than Wisconsin unions manage for Democrats in their state elections.

That’s pretty darn impressive. That’s a better voting machine than Wisconsin unions manage for Democrats in their state elections. That much is certain.

Realizing what had been done, Pertner made it clear that they have no ill will toward the Razorbacks and it was all just a huge misunderstanding. “We will continue to do these polls in the future,” Pertner said, “and are sorry if any Hog fans took it as intentional disrespect on our part because I can assure you it was nothing more than an honest misunderstanding.”

While the Hogville machine won’t forgive many grievances, I bet they’ll forgive this one. It was an honest mistake, and the folks that comprise the Hogville.net user base are a fine collection of passionate Razorback fans.

I should know. I’m one of them.